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olau writes "Michael Meeks, who's worked on GNOME and LibreOffice integration for many years, now for SuSE, has some really interesting thoughts on the recent Linux desktop debate and suggestions for possible strategies. He points out that regarding independent software vendors (ISVs), the real issue isn't actually the quality of the tools but the size and attractiveness of the market, and perhaps that a solution could be lower barriers for paying or donating. Regarding OEMs selling hardware with software preinstalled, he points out that while a free OS + software sounds good for consumers, it's actually a problem for OEMs on razor-thin margins, since they lose the cut they get from the preinstallations. A possible countermove could be nailing robustness and hardware diagnostics for good, lowering OEM support costs."

At the end of the day, it's a lot easier if Grandma has an OS that other family members can help her with.

No matter how much I like my Linux Desktop, I don't want to be responsible for bringing non-tech-savvy people along. The rest of the family is fully capable of troubleshooting basic windows problems, more or less.

Amen to that! That has been exactly my experience. After 1999 I was a Linux guy. Before that, a Mac guy. I've never had to help people with Windows problems. I don't run Windows, and I don't know how to "fix" Windows -- other than in a similar sense to getting a pet "fixed". My best honest advice to switch to something else is all I could offer, and they knew it.

Lately Windows problems seem to be getting a lot worse and a lot faster. I've had several friends have severe problems suddenly within re

I supposedly am educated in the ways of computers: I have a degree in the field, I work in the field, I have computers.

Bought a Win7 PC for home use - it has baffled me repeatedly, being the most *explicative* piece of *explicative* I have ever had the misfortune to use*. If anyone asks me for help with their Win7 system, I'll simply have to tell them to buy a mac.

I have been doing this for years. People come to me with Windows problems and I just say they must go to the person who sold them their software.

Blank stares as they do not understand. They are confused because they did not pay for their version of Windows. Even blanker stares if they DID pay for their version and can't get support for it.

And then they tell me that they found somebody who did it for them who explained that it is normal that PCs go slower over time and that they must buy a new one. When I ask them if their TV is slower, they look at me if _I_ am stoopid.

Obviously they have no interest in free (beer AND speech) alternatives.

When I ask them if their TV is slower, they look at me if _I_ am stoopid.

Because they know a TV is a dumb appliance that just sits there without getting software installed on a regular basis, so your analogy is stupid. Give them a little credit. Operating systems with all the assorted application software are complex, and any number of things can go wrong.

Operating systems with all the assorted application software are complex, and any number of things can go wrong.

Only if your OS is poorly designed and written. The problem with Windows slowing down is its registry, which grows over time and consumes more and more memory. Other OSes don't have that problem. Since moving to Linux, I've never had a machine slow down with time, whereas XP and 98 needed reinstalls every year or so. W7 is an improvement, I've had my notebook for a year and it's only slowing sligh

My mother has a Linux netbook. Other than getting her email set up with Thunderbird when she got it (she couldn't do that herself in Outlook Express either,) I haven't ever touched the thing. It's just never had an issue.

Her Windows desktop, on the other hand, seems to need some kind of repair every time I visit.....

Her Windows desktop, on the other hand, seems to need some kind of repair every time I visit.....

Amen to that, brother. I use to have to book special trips to fix my mothers Windows systems, printers not working, email broke, browser won't work on web site, system real slow, weird crashes, viruses like you wouldn't beleive, and on and on... Finally her laptop broke and she took it Geek Squad (mind you against my repeated admonitions not to). They charged her $70 to tell her their Windows diagnostic CD wouldn't even start and she had serious hardware problems and it would cost at LEAST $200 more just to diagnose the problems. I told her to send it to me. I installed Ubuntu. Went up there and showed her where the menus were, how to find all the nice free software for doing whatever she needed to do and set up her email in Thunderbird. Haven't had to touch it since and that was more than 3 years ago. Mind you she is about as computer illiterate as they come. I could tell several more stories of conversion. Linux is better on the desktop than Windows for everyone, not just "computer geeks". The ONLY reason it's not more wide spread is it doesn't come pre-installed. Mind you it's a lot easier to install than Windows also.

Linux is better on the desktop than Windows for everyone, not just "computer geeks".

Disagree. Linux works great for those who are computer illiterate, at least as long as you don't tell them it's Linux until they are already using it (otherwise they'll probably balk at it being too hard to use before even turning the system on). And it works great for those of us who know our way around a computer.

But in between, you have the hardcore Windows geeks. The ones who know exactly which malware removal tool that

I gave my mother in law a Linux netbook 3 years ago. She lives in a different country, so initially I fretted about remote support with SSH, but I have never needed to do anything. So, when it eventually breaks, I'll just send her a new one.

The ONLY reason it's not more wide spread is it doesn't come pre-installed. Mind you it's a lot easier to install than Windows also.

Well, that's a big reason but hardly the only reason. Other reasons are that nobody but us nerds have even heard about it, let alone have any clue how many features Windows lacks, how it's more tolerant of hardware faults, how it doesn't have a growing registry to slow it down, how it doesn't need AV, etc. If they have herd of it, they've heard the FUD, like you have to use the

My mother has a Linux netbook. Other than getting her email set up with Thunderbird when she got it (she couldn't do that herself in Outlook Express either,) I haven't ever touched the thing. It's just never had an issue.

So I take it then that she never updates or installs software? That's where all the trouble starts. I wonder what version of Thunderbird she's running and how many security bugs it has.

What? I run a full system update on a monthly basis (I run Arch), and have been for years, and have NEVER had an update break anything. Let me guess -- your experience is with Ubuntu? Don't blame Linux; blame the crap distro.

Of course, I can't count the number of times I've had crap break because of Windows updates. Remember XP SP2?

As for whether or not her system is actually updating -- well, I hope so, there _is_ an automatic updater on the it, but having never had to touch the thing I can't say for certa

What? I run a full system update on a monthly basis (I run Arch), and have been for years, and have NEVER had an update break anything. Let me guess -- your experience is with Ubuntu? Don't blame Linux; blame the crap distro.

I run Debian, which Ubuntu is based on. I wouldn't call it a "crap" distro, and I wonder how Arch can prevent things from breaking given all the 3rd party software that tends to break from time to time. Maybe you've just had good luck, a selective memory, or somehow Arch is amazingly good at preventing the occasional breaks.

Of course, I can't count the number of times I've had crap break because of Windows updates. Remember XP SP2?

I've had very good results with updating XP, so no, I don't share your experience.

I _can_ tell you that her previous XP desktop never got a single update in its life -- she doesn't know how to do it, and I had to turn them off after they kept breaking shit.

Better to put up with things breaking than leaving XP unsecured.

And I'd trust an unpatched old Linux system over an unpatched Windows XP ANY day...

Even better, if someone else would make things like LyX really work with alternate document type macros, particularly SFFMS (which I used to write my novel because it will actually produce printed paper drafts in the absurd formats publishers want like double-underline for italics).

Currently I use Kile on KDE for editing my latex documents.

---

But _really_ *where* is the word processor that just saves its text in reasonable HTML. You know wh

Make sure they understand that the data they store in the VM is not permanent, and they need to keep backups of everything as often as possible. You dont want them to lose their holiday picture, right?

Why bother with all that and have the extra load of running a VM on top of the system when you can just slap Comodo Time Machine [softpedia.com] set to take snapshots at startup and just call it a day?

Its the perfect cure for the clueless users that break their machines, just have them hit the home key on boot, or pick the little clock icon if its running, send it back to a snapshot before they borked it and voila! Hell you can even lock a clean and loaded snapshot so its like having your own factory restore for any mach

Give yourself a remote account. Give grandma her own account that can only write in her own directory. Do remote maintenance at will. Back up her shit to something at your house because grandma is gonna break or lose that shit to her own activities someday. Do stealth maintenance.

In short, nuke that family shit from FOSS Orbit _before_ it can fester.

Let her experiment with several live CDs: Ubuntu, Xubuntu and Kubuntu. Find out if she likes any of them enough to want to migrate and if so, help her do what's needed. Make sure that she knows that she won't have to worry about malware, defragging or restarting her computer several times a day and that you'll still do her tech support whatever she decides.

I agree. That is a tough nut to crack, lowering support costs for the *average* consumer. The best case scenario I can imagine (and I admit I'm not trying to imagine too hard) is being able to remote in to the system and fix the box remotely. I can't imagine how many support calls are generated because the user installed software that is imcompatible with the latest kernel update.

Watch me get hate for saying this, but fuck it I got karma...its the updates!

I can take a copy of XP RTM with NO service packs, slap it on any old bog standard P4 or other PC I have laying around, make sure all the drivers are working and then patch it to current. That is THREE service packs and probably a couple of thousand updates on top of that, what do I get at the end? It is ALL still working. The WiFi is working, the video is working, the sound, the NIC, its ALL still working.

Watch me get hate for saying this, but fuck it I got karma...its the updates!

Well, is it hate because people disagree with you or is it hate because you're wrong and being deliberately inflammatory?

can take a copy of XP RTM with NO service packs, slap it on any old bog standard P4 or other PC I have laying around, make sure all the drivers are working and then patch it to current. That is THREE service packs and probably a couple of thousand updates on top of that, what do I get at the end? It is ALL still working. The WiFi is working, the video is working, the sound, the NIC, its ALL still working.

Lucky you! I've seen one or more driver packs and updates in sequence for Windows XP cause it to be left in a shitty state that works (maybe) but is broken in some manner.

Now compare to Linux: I can take any distro that was released the same quarter as Vista, which is supposed to be the shittiest MSFT OS since WinME which I agree with, place it and Vista RTM side by side, patch them both to current...what do I get? All the hardware on the Vista machine still works, the hardware on the Linux box is fucked.

Really? How so? Oh wait, you won't give an example. Just a "Linux leaves systems fucked after updates! Linux sucks!" and we're supposed to believe you blindly. Got it.

But of course you won't respond to this, nor the fact that the ONLY way Dell, one of the largest OEMs on the God damned planet BTW, can get Linux to fucking run even when dealing with a severely limited subselecti

That all depends on the hardware you buy.
For instance, put a SATA drive in the system and try to install any version of Windows XP - it won't as the disk doesn't contain the drivers and you have to use a floppy drive to load the drivers (or modify the install disk to include them). Dell/HP/etc modify the disk and set it up for you; but if you bought it with an IDE drive (a long time ago) and upgraded to a SATA, then you're screwed. Vista/Win7 are better as they do include the SATA drivers. (And yes, SATA

Putting together a PC - or even a laptop - where all the chipsets and everything are known to work w/ Linux by itself is not a big deal. With some verification of the AVL, one can put that together, and it should work fine, which is what he seems to be describing.

But as humanrev mentioned, w/ Linux, it's either an all-or-nothing - it either works beautifully, or it simply doesn't work @ all. The worst problem in the past has been NIC and Wi-Fi, and if that doesn't work, one can't even go on forum hunts.

But as humanrev mentioned, w/ Linux, it's either an all-or-nothing - it either works beautifully, or it simply doesn't work @ all. The worst problem in the past has been NIC and Wi-Fi, and if that doesn't work, one can't even go on forum hunts. Note that it's not just the PC - there is a question of which other hardware supports it OOTB. Printers, All-in-ones, webcams, and so on. With Windows, whenever you buy any hardware, you can be sure that it works w/ it (they are very specific about whether they work

I need a new system. My 5 year old Dell (preloaded with Ubuntu 7.04, now upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04) is starting to really show its age. I am posting this from it with my original wireless card. While all of my favorite Windows games (RCT2, Battle Zone, Fallout, Death Rally) work perfecty under WINE and the rest, (ROTT, DOOMxxx, Cold War, DEFCON 1) have been natively ported to Linux, I can't run the lastest games like "Amnesia: The Dark Descent" with the best performance. It is playable but slow.

Now compare to Linux: I can take any distro that was released the same quarter as Vista, which is supposed to be the shittiest MSFT OS since WinME which I agree with, place it and Vista RTM side by side, patch them both to current...what do I get? All the hardware on the Vista machine still works, the hardware on the Linux box is fucked.

This is just plain a blatant lie. In the past 10 years I've installed OSes on at least 40 systems ranging from old clunky desktop hardware to netbooks. With Linux I've almost never had problems other than wireless and even that hasn't usually been an issue for years. Every time I've installed Windows it's been a battle with drivers. With XP you couldn't even install to SATA drives until Service Pack 2 years after SATA came out. Then you had to load network drivers to a CD just to get them to the system so you could even get the rest of the drivers. Then you have to figure out what video and sound drivers you needed while operating at 640×480. Now Windows 7 is greatly improved in this respect. At least the basics like networking seem to work so you can just pull video drivers from the web (mind you still, running at 640x480).

Big fucking deal. At least with Windows you know you'll HAVE drivers that work to support 100% of the functionality of whatever hardware you connect to your computer. Might need some searching, but they'll be out there. If I was only running Linux I'd be concerned about buying any new printer, scanner, webcam, specialized peripheral or whatever, because I know from experience that even after research is performed on the hardware's Linux compa

And isn't it funny how every single post other than yours is simply a "works for me!" followed by "U must be a shill!" Wow, really?

Linux drivers sucking balls is God damned legendary, even long time Linux admins admit the wireless is deep fried ass and didn't De Icaza have an article here not even a damned week ago talking about how he had fucking gave up on sound because of Pulse? Is the community THAT filled with religious zealotry that even pointing out the damned obvious is impossible?

Just today somebody gave me a TV tuner and video capture card because it doesn't work on Win7. In my workplace we have expensive machines with weird backplanes that were purchased this year and are running win98 due to some digital signal processing hardware that won't run on anything newer. Some HP printers were abandoned when win7 came out, never mind the stuff from far smaller companies that don't have the resources to rewrite drivers.The 100% bullshit really just shows a lack of experience in your pet subject. With closed drivers you have to hope that they people producing them give a shit or otherwise you run the risk of having to get new hardware when the software is upgraded. That's not a big deal for one person, but when there are large collections of hardware or niches where you depend on one bit of odd gear to do a task you end up with the legacy gear in the corner for a specific task and far more machines than you have users.

I got my mom to use linux, and she's a Grandma. I got sick of having to re-install windows so I left for linux*, then told her that I wasn't really doing windows anymore because I no longer learned anything when i fixed problems on it. So she switched, loves it, when it has issues...at least I learn something.

Same here. And that was ten years ago, because I was tired of dealing with IE exploding, Outlook mail viruses, on and on. She can log on, run Firefox to get to Google, run Thunderbird for email, print, play the various free games (mostly the card games), and shut down. I also showed her how to run the regular Ubuntu LTS updates. My service and support calls (for the computer at least) dropped over 90%. I know a couple of her elderly friends who have given up on computers in the interim because they 'caught'

No matter how much I like my Linux Desktop, I don't want to be responsible for bringing non-tech-savvy people along. The rest of the family is fully capable of troubleshooting basic windows problems, more or less.

But after the machine is set up, what problems are going to crop up in Linux? Most Windows problems I fix for friends involve nothing more than uninstalling crap like toolbars and removing one of two or more AV programs that are fighting amongst themselves, and flaky hardware (Windows is NOT forgiv

That is also my experience. Set grandma up with Linux (Ubuntu 6.10) on a very old PC back in 2006. Gradually she not only got used to it but got to make good enough use of it to warrant a brand new machine. Now several years after that, we upgraded the hard drive, and the Ubuntu on it. Now we're thinking about another new PC with yet another new Ubuntu. I don't know how Unity will go over, but the browser seems to be the major application other than some collecting and printing of digital camera photos.

Oh, and she lives several hours away. So I set up a way I can SSH in through the firewall on non standard port, and then VNC. I've only had to do that about three or four times over the years, and mostly only in the early days. Things like accidentially pressing F11 to maximize Firefox -- OMG what happened! Etc.

When Ubuntu went to Unity, my older sister did her best to adapt to it. After over a year, she got tired of (among other things) having to hit tiny activation points with her mouse, especially when her Parkenson's is acting up. I'd moved from Gnome to Xfce (on Fedora) to avoid ever having to deal with Gnome 3, and showed her how much simpler it is and after a bit of thinking it over, I talked her through installing Xfce and making it her default DE. If your grandma doesn't want to learn a whole new DE, l

Ubuntu was the perfect tool for some friends who just use their PC to browse and chat online. It worked perfectly. The fucking Ubuntu went to Unity and fucked it all up. I have raged as a nerd often enough about the Gnome 3 and Unity shit but it was with the geek installs for people who just needed a PC to launch a browser that it has the biggest effect. Just installed XP back from the rescue partition and told them that IT hates them and doesn't want them to use a computer.

Just installed XP back from the rescue partition and told them that IT hates them and doesn't want them to use a computer.

Why? Gnome 3 and Unity aren't the only DE's available, even for Unity. Just find one that looks and works the way your friends are expecting and switch them to it. I don't know about you, but one of my big selling point for Linux is the variety and your ability to customize more than just your wallpaper and icon locations.

Yup, you could always install Mint, and any of the DEs it offers - KDE, XFCE, LXDE or Cinnamon. Or, if she prefers the Ubuntu experience, Xubuntu or Lubuntu. Somehow, I hesitate to recommend Kubuntu, given that they seem to make brand new apps, such as ReKonq, as their default.

You have a sales team, you are trying to sell your product. That is hard enough. Now you need to push Linux too on their existing Windows infrastructure too...

Companies like consistency. Linux is a perfectly good OS. However we are a windows shop here, and don't want to support two platforms.

Companies will pay more money to keep a consistent environment. Those Linux servers will need to cost $500 less then their windows counterparts. You need to be less then the OS cost and less then the Its different cost, then you will need to deal with people who will just get the lesser cost system and put their own OS on it (legal/illegal/let the courts decide if they find out)

In fifteen years, I've purchased ONE application. It wasn't very good and since it wasn't open source I couldn't fix it. So I guess I'm one who expects all my software to be "free". (I contribute code, bug reports, etc., not cash)
Funny thing is, I make a living mainly by SELLING software for Linux, but I never BUY software.

I'm a die-hard Linuxer and I also pay to use TurboTax online. I doubt if I'd buy the Windoze edition to run at home but running in my browser is just fine and there is the presumed added advantage that the on-line edition is up to date.

The quoted poster's implication is correct. Linuxers don't want everything for free; I pay for lots of value-added services, such as the aforementioned TurboTax, membership on a chess site, etc. I'm even going to BUY--- that's right, I said BUY--- the Linux edition of Scriv

I can think of 5 reason why (in no particular order):1) Your company pays you to write software for linux2) You have fun writing application for linux and do it part time (everyone needs a hobby, right?)3) The software is good enough, that people donate money to help you work full time on it.4) You sell support (or special edition cds or whatever) for your software, but your software is free.5) You sell a commercial version of your software, that has additional components that are not included in your free

(1) Well, people have certainly paid me to write software that runs on Linux, but it's always been proprietary stuff that runs on servers in turnkey systems and suchlike (in fact I'm doing one such project right now), never shrink-wrap desktop stuff for sale to end users.

(2) Erm... I'm afraid that my hobby is flying little aeroplanes... and my other hobby, being an elected politician, is even more expensive.

(3) Don't have sufficient marketing skills and expertise, in that I can make more money by writing

1) It depends on the company. Many companies understand the open source community and do fund stuff that help them market some of their other products.

2) After the initial ground work by one developer (or a small set of developers), the hobby developers can and do make an impact. By hobby I mean something like one hour a month, by hundreds (in some projects thousands) of developers (some of them would have worked on similar problems before and are really experts in them). You can contribute if you want to t

I forgot to add, the 3rd option, donations, is becoming more and more popular with kickstarter (remember how dispora got $200,000). If you have an real idea that people would find useful. Linux, free-as-in-beer, and donation depend is not a bad model at all. You can find a number of such tools getting funded on kickstarter.

Yeah, but will the company want to pay him to write the same thing once and port it to different revisions of Linux, or different combinations of Linux/X/glibc/Qt/GTK+? Most ISVs would want to write a software version once that would run on Linux version n, n++ and so on. Subsequent versions of the software would be enhanced features, not merely more ports

2) You have fun writing application for linux and do it part time (everyone needs a hobby, right?)

Yeah, but how much fun is it writing the same application once, and struggling to port it to a myriad #platforms and software combinations?

3) The software is good enough, that people donate money to help you work full time on it.

Yeah, but will the company want to pay him to write the same thing once and port it to different revisions of Linux, or different combinations of Linux/X/glibc/Qt/GTK+? Most ISVs would want to write a software version once that would run on Linux version n, n++ and so on. Subsequent versions of the software would be enhanced features, not merely more ports

Er, why would you want to port a Qt application to GTK+, when it will run just fine? But I understand you point, companies do not pay for porting to varying platforms, but this is where the community (of hobby devs) usually takes over.

2) You have fun writing application for linux and do it part time (everyone needs a hobby, right?)

Yeah, but how much fun is it writing the same application once, and struggling to port it to a myriad #platforms and software combinations?

Not fun, but you always find volunteers doing this on many many open source projects.

3) The software is good enough, that people donate money to help you work full time on it.

Why not just straight-forward sell it for a reasonable price, say $20-50?

Why not just straight-forward accept donations and then build your project (aka kickstarter)

4) You sell support (or special edition cds or whatever) for your software, but your software is free.

I agree w/ the GP's response on this one

I have responded to GP.

5) You sell a commercial version of your software, that has additional components that are not included in your free version.

I am surprised you been on slashdot for so long, and still did not understand this.

Again, like he said, it's hard to draw a balance b/w making it so good that add-ons won't be needed, vs making it so bad that the user won't want to trust him w/ his money.

Again responded to GP, but many projects have successfully used it. I guess

Yeah, but will the company want to pay him to write the same thing once and port it to different revisions of Linux, or different combinations of Linux/X/glibc/Qt/GTK+? Most ISVs would want to write a software version once that would run on Linux version n, n++ and so on. Subsequent versions of the software would be enhanced features, not merely more ports

Er, why would you want to port a Qt application to GTK+, when it will run just fine? But I understand you point, companies do not pay for porting to varying platforms, but this is where the community (of hobby devs) usually takes over.

Problem is that once a company has ported an app to, lets say, Mint 12, it would expect it to work seamlessly in Mint 13, 14, and so on. Let's say it makes something called Acmeworks 1.0, which was developed on/for Mint 12. Now, later, it might choose to develop Acmeworks 2.0 and make Mint 15 its target platform - that is standard practice.

However, if the company has ported Acmeworks 1.0 to Mint 12, and finds that 1.0 doesn't work on Mint 13, that's a major bummer. B'cos it would like to leverage its

Interesting contradictory fact. [humblebundle.com] Scroll down and look at the payment statistics. Linux users evidently pay about twice as much as Windows users when given the choice. I have bought two bundles before, and both times the pattern was the same as with the latest bundle.

... when you have children to feed and a mortgage to pay...... and the users expect all their software to be free?

Better off spending one's time addressing a market where people expect to have to pay for stuff, no?

I bought the Linux Edition of Corel WordPerfect 8 a while back. No, I don't expect everything to be free. But companies also have to make the effort to support Linux. Soon it will be required if they want to keep certain market segments as Microsoft is destroying itself.

I get paid major bank to work on software for Linux. That some of it goes out to be free is no skin off my teeth.

See free software isn't "I'm gonna write some POS and hope someone buys it" development model. Those days are dead mostly anyway. Its "Some guy wants these features put on that 'free' bit because he actually has a use case, and he's gonna pay me to meet his needs then give it away so neither of us get stuck paying upkeep and he can have me do something newer and better".

Who want's to spend 40 years doing maintenance on a some accounting or word processing software anyway. There are people who are writing better gear because they need to process words and account for money. And since they really make their money counting money and processing words, giving the bycatch code out as the "whole cost" of getting the whole pre-mod app is a huge win.

It just won't lead to "another microsoft"

That closed source model was a fluke anyway, the preceding 40 years were open source. The next twenty five or so was a grand experiment that largely failed except for a few really unexpected cutthroat operators, and now its back to the more natural state of only paying for what you need.

In a current version of word I don't use 90% of it, and I'm a technical writer and novelist, but I paid for it all back when I was that foolish. Same can be said for any person or company that has ever bought that slag. So now there is this free stuff that was made by someone who actually needed it, so it's not so much slag, and given away to others who _might_ need it, and then gotten back greatly improved by the supporters and the adders on.

That's lots of money feeding lots of people, and nobody is wasting their time or money playing the "trade secret" and "big P.R." games.

Artificial scarcity. It is the backbone of the American economy as well as many other corporatist nations. Since you can't make money off free stuff, stores won't carry it. Even when selling hardware, if they can make more money selling restricted software along with it, they will. Before if you got a discount from buying a pre-built computer with crapware on it, at least you could wipe it all and install whatever you wanted. Now with “secure boot”, they can push control onto the software level and control the entire software stack if the wanted to. Don't like that Windows 8 Crapware Edition on there? Too bad, you're stuck with it, and the Crapware Edition won't allow you to remove the crapware on it either, plus it comes with adware and spyware (when you purchased this computer, you automatically opted-in to provide us with “information for marketing purposes”) pre-loaded which you also can't remove. I can also see this entire system pushing out build-it-yourself computers since the pre-built one offers more money. Even if some semblance of DIY hardware is still available, at the very least the pre-built systems will ultimately cost less because the hardware vendors will get a cut of the marketing and data mining profits.

I just figured I would share the future in advance with everyone so that the reality would set in sooner: Start supporting vendors which sell pre-built computers that aren't locked down as well as standardized DIY hardware. Also, start supporting home fabrication projects which will soon be able to create primitive computers, because ultimately unregulated capitalism will always find some way to fuck you otherwise. DIY hardware is already horribly unstandardized and consumer-raping. If you live in a country which is regulated so you feel you don't have to worry - just wait, you will. There is meaning behind the saying with the roots and the evil. No, not the recipe for making evil root beer.

See, thing is. Software was originally written by people who had to actually do things other than write software. It was all open soruce anyway. Not just Unix whith its original sharing stuff, but all the software that came before. In the seventies when IBM delivered you a copy of DOS and TSO and CICS for your big-iron mainframe it came on two sets of tapes. One was the ready to run binaries, and the other was the "you bet your ass you are going to find something you are go

Given that both have been around since at least 2004, would either of these be described as a success on the Desktop, if described a failure then why would that be also? It's also inexplicable that in that whole piece [gnome.org], there's no mention of the litigation issues promulgated by a convicted monopolist against Open Source. Given it took me about two hour to install and fine-tune Linux on this cobbled-together-desktop, it puzzles me how you could describe the "transaction costs" as too high. Just how high can t

I agree with that. But the linux community has grown considerably (the computer market has grown, and the proportion of linux users has grown slightly). This has brought benefits in the form of more focus on usability and esthetics.

I mean, I like the command line, but there is something to be said about a good file manager with does previews. I think that the evolutions in desktop linux we are seeing are a consequence of the growth in the community. Some of which is not so good (I'm looking at you, GNOME an

Unlike Windows, when I install a fresh copy of Linux on my laptop, all the hardware works out of the box. Shit, I can't even get internet out of the box on Windows without using an OEM-supplied disk that already has drivers pre-loaded...

Windows isn't more usable than Linux -- OEMs MAKE Windows more usable than Linux. Would you expect Windows to be easy if you bought a computer from Apple and a regular Windows install disk from, say, Amazon.com? And even with these massive advantages, I've still always found

"Would you expect Windows to be easy if you bought a computer from Apple and a regular Windows install disk from, say, Amazon.com? "

Actually, I just did that. I got a regular old copy of Window 7, put it in the drive of my old 2006 1.66Ghz core Duo Mac Mini and it installed without a problem. It recognized the Wifi, Intel graphics, bluetooth, Firewire, Gigabit ethernet and kne it was a MacMini1.2 manufactured by Apple. No drivers were necessary.

OK, well good for you I guess if you find it works...my experience has been the exact opposite.

Windows updates have a history of breaking things. This may be a bit out of date -- I haven't used Windows much since XP -- but remember XP SP2? I can't count the number of systems I had to reverse that update on after it broken damn near everything. I recall at least one or two needing a full system reinstall. I know systems that are still running XP SP1 because of how much of a disaster that was. As for drivers

If you run Microsoft Office you've never had 100% Office compatibility. Open a docx document with Office 2003. You can look at it ( with a helper program), but you can't edit it unless you save it as a.doc document.

This is correct. Windows has gotten to the point of diminishing returns, and Windows 7 is a good target for someone like, say ReactOS, to attain. Similarly, if someone makes a suite compatible w/ and does everything that Office 2003 does, he's good. Calligra could use some catching up on PowerPoint and Kexi, but yeah, it too can get there.

There won't be any reason for any OS or app to be compatible w/ Windows 8 any more than anybody had any reason to be compatible w/ Itanic.

First off, Windows and Apple ecosystems are quite similar. The main exceptions are that 1) OS X has significant chunks that are FOSS, 2) OS X has to run on Apple hardware as opposed to the effort that Microsoft and OEMs make to ensure they are compatible/well integrated, and 3) Windows is encrusted with money-making schemes (even ISPs and breakfast cereals are in on it) whereas Apple shuns the crapware ecosystem entirely.

Other than that, both commercial platforms try to provide a familiar (feature-stable),

The biggest problem w/ Linux is that requirement of CLI knowledge. The only ones who have managed to completely eliminate that requirement has been Apple. NEXT had proven in the 90s that it could be done, and Apple continued the trend. Forget about the XNU kernel for a bit (Apple could have used FBSD completely had they so wanted), but Apple putting Quartz on top of FBSD userland demonstrates that it can be done.

So, given that KDE has tools by which one could alter system configurations and do just abo

Linux is like water. Water is free and abundant, but the only way a business is going to make money off water isa. take the good stuff (mt spring for example) for yourself and sell it (e.g. Evian)b. give "free" water such a bad rap that yours is better (e.g. pollute the crap out of free water). But then sell basic tap water with good marketing (e.g. Dansi, Dannon, Arrowhead, etc...)

Odd, I thought companies making things like boats, fishing rods, lures, bate, sails, paint, etc,etc were all making money off Water.